


Strangers

by WinterSwallow



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Not a love story love story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 05:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18382019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterSwallow/pseuds/WinterSwallow
Summary: She wishes she could not know him...





	Strangers

She wishes she could not know him.

That they could meet and be just strangers.

That someday, in some way, in some distant nub of the galaxy, she could look up and see him across a room and feel nothing at all, only soft curiosity at this tall stranger. She wishes she could chance to look up into his dark eyes and pale face as he passes and they could mean so little to her that she could forget them in the time it takes for her to turn away.

And maybe he will stop at the bar and lean in to summon the server and she will lift her head and then let her gaze glance off him. And perhaps he will sit and drink his wine as she drinks hers, and they will not speak and their arms will not quite touch.

Or maybe one of them will make some pleasantry, about the liquor or the weather or the cost of fuel on this forsaken dust spit and they will fall to talking, as strangers do, about things of no consequence.

The war will be a distant thing when they are strangers again, a curiosity on the other edge of space. Out here, an empire may rise and fall and make barely a ripple. Out here, the grand battles of gods and monsters mean nothing against the everyday struggle to eat and work and love and die and _live._

He will tell her that he is out here to look for work and she will tell him she is second mate on a cargo freighter hauling silica to the outer rim and it will not matter how they are both lying. Her saber will stay in her boot and his will be hidden in the folds of his tunic, and because she cannot see it, it will be easy to pretend it is not there.

And perhaps as the evening gets later and the cantina rowdier, it will seem natural enough to take the liquor bottle and follow a stranger up the steps, so they can stretch out beneath the stars. She will tuck her knees to her chest and he will extend his long legs on the yellow grass. When his fingers touch hers it will be nothing, mean nothing, just an accidental brush as he pries the bottle out of her hand and they will both forget it the moment after it happens. It will not feel like the heart of a star or the death of galaxies, because both those things are absurd.

And maybe it is too greedy a thing to ask for, that even when the fire is out, and the cords between them are all snapped, that they could sit side by side in peace. Maybe it’s too much to think that they could sit like this and talk without hurting each other. That there could be no violence between them. Maybe he is too rare for cheap spirits and grass and stars, he who was raised in grandeur, who was educated to his own consequence. Maybe he could not bear the company of a scavenger, even for one night.

But maybe he has smuggler’s blood in him.

Maybe when it is lifted from him, all that pain and grief and pointless fury, maybe the lines on his face will ease and he can laugh; with her, at her, at the random chance in a fateless universe that brings two people brushing against each other, if only for a night. Maybe he will feel as light as she does, when she is no longer smothered by the pall of destiny, when she is beholden to no one and no one is beholden to her, and the only things she need worry about is scraping carbon from her ship’s hull and what the next meal that fills her stomach will be.

And if he laughs – or if he doesn’t – it will only matter for a moment, or not at all. Because when they are strangers, she won’t feel that strange and violent pull at the centre of her, and when they are strangers, she won’t miss it.

When he is a stranger to her, it might be easy to make him laugh. She might tell him some tale, half true, half-exaggerated, about her shipmate’s misadventures among the jawas. She might mug and mimic and snort and he might laugh or he might not. But even if he does not laugh, he might at least weave a story in kind, some rumour he heard of fighting in the outer territories or of rebellion in some far of system.

And maybe, alone in the cool night air, they’ll tell each other things, because sometimes it’s easier to pour yourself into a stranger than it is to open yourself to your closest friends. She will tell him about growing up on Jakku, alone, scrabbling for water and for parts and for belonging, and he will tell her what it is like to have a father he worshipped and hated and loved all at the same time. And because she doesn’t know him, doesn’t know his father, wasn’t there when he was cut down, she will listen and it will not ache and she will not have to hate him.

When he is a stranger to her he will not need to ask her forgiveness, because a stranger didn’t bring horror and death to all that she loves. When he is a stranger, how could he have done the things she cannot forgive?

He will ask her has she ever been in love and she will say yes, once, long ago, but that he proved to be unworthy. And he will nod and look at the stars and say, yes, yes, he knows something of unworthiness.

And maybe he will touch her bare shoulder with his finger, just softly, just once, and maybe his thumb will graze her wrist and she will not flinch away. And maybe she will press her mouth to his. Because isn’t that what men and women the galaxy over do when they are feeling lonely and have had too much wine? And it will be sweet and awkward and good and bad by turns. Nothing special. Nothing transcendent. Just two bodies learning to fit together in the way that bodies do.

And when it is over he or she will get up and leave. Or maybe they will linger for a time, for a night, and she will sleep in the crook of his arm, and he will press his face into her hair.

And when first sunrise comes, she will rise and gather her boots and leave as he sleeps on. She will smile to herself. And that will be that. A thing that happened and is now finished. She will go and he will not follow her and it will not matter.

And when she thinks of him after, if she thinks of him after, it will be just a faint but pleasant memory of a stranger chanced upon on the road. And she will move on to friends and loves and lovers who are better, kinder, braver and wiser.

And it will not hurt at all. 


End file.
